Next, I want to look at the Exodus. But before I get into the story of how God delivered His people after 400 years of slavery, read Exodus 6:6-9 below.

““Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. 8 I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord!’ So, Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.’”

God was promising to fulfill His promise to Abraham and to bless the Israelites beyond their imagination. The Israelites refused to listen, refused to believe because they had become too discouraged by the sheer brutality of their slavery. They had heart, that what discouragement means, so even the sure promises of God fell on unwilling ears.

Some of us…if not all of us…have battled against things that never seem to go away. Maybe wounds inflicted through betrayal, abandonment or even indifference still flare up at anything that remotely resembles the wounding moment. Satan whispers using the voice of our own thoughts, “God doesn’t really care…it’s been so long…you can’t get free…you can’t face it…do so and people will reject you even more.”

That lie insinuates that there are things God can’t set you free from. That is similar to the lie the enemy told Adam and Eve. “God is not enough for you to be fully human.” BUT…when it seems that it has been so long for an area to be set free, we need to take great care, to beware lest we give us and stop seeking, listening to and following what God has already said to us. Never forget in the momentary darkness what God has revealed to you in the light.

Difficulty and long, drawn-out waiting never nullify God’s covenant promises. 400 years of slavery had to have felt endless to Israel. But in Genesis 15:16 God tells Abraham that He was giving a pagan, idolatrous people, the Amorites, time to repent before He set His people free. The patience of God with the godless was 400 years immense.

God give us all time to turn from self and rely on His faithfulness. His sure promises have become “YES” in Jesus Christ. Don’t refuse to listen to God’s Word to you because things seem hard and endless; because things aren’t going the way you had hoped they might.

I suspect, no, I am sure that there are things in my life that I will struggle with till I meet Jesus face-to-face. But, like Jacob who limped the rest of his life after wrestling with God, that pain in the hip reminded him daily of his absolute dependance on the One Who had called him into covenant.